Fireball (21 page)

They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool...
She slipped off her shoes and leaned back in her chair, still humming the tune.
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules…

‘Come on,' she said. ‘Sing with me. You're making me self-conscious.'

I laughed and tried to join in, but I didn't know any of the lyrics and ended up sounding like a bit of a treat. After a while I tapered off, and instead just sat there sipping rum and sneaking glances at her ankles and feet. She wasn't wearing any nail polish. She didn't have to. Her feet were hot enough as it was – even hotter than Karen's elbows.

When the song ended, she said, ‘You know, my daughter once asked me how I wanted to die. She was six. What kind of question is that for a six-year-old to ask?'

‘What did you tell her?'

‘That I didn't know. I wasn't lying. I honestly don't know. Do you?'

‘No.'

We sat there, trying to think of the best way.

I said, ‘Chris wants fireworks when he dies. You know – like a big bang.'

She gave me a funny look. ‘Do you wish you were more like Chris?'

I shrugged. ‘Well, it would be cool to be that tough.'

‘And he has Karen.' She picked a bit of fluff off her skirt. ‘You like her, don't you?'

‘Sure. I mean, she's pretty unique.'

‘You dream about her. Do you fantasise about her, too?'

I nodded and didn't say anything.

‘About both of them?'

I looked away, out the window.

My dad's a bit of a bloodhound about booze. Come to think of it, he actually looks like a bloodhound. He's got those drawn eyes and saggy cheeks and a pair of middle-aged jowls. And whenever he picks me up from parties, he sort of sniffs the air. Totally suspicious. Then he'll say something super sarcastic, something like, ‘God you smell like a brewery.' He doesn't get furious, either. He just goes all quiet and looks disappointed, as if I've let him down in the worst possible way. It drives me absolutely insane, so for obvious reasons I was pretty nervous when he picked me up from my shrink's office. He was driving his Civic – the silver one he got a year or two ago. I rolled down the window, straight away, and made sure to breathe out the side of my mouth. Also, I got him talking. That's the best way to avoid his wrath. Just get him talking and act extremely interested in whatever he says.

‘Hey pops – why was Lennon so awesome?'

‘Lenin the communist or Lennon the Beatle?'

‘The Beatle.'

‘Well,' he said, and sort of shifted around in his seat. I could tell he was getting ready to do some serious talking. ‘He was one of those people who became more than a person, for whatever reason. The hippies wanted an icon and Lennon fit the mould. So we put him up on a pedestal. And for a while he actually seemed to stand for something.'

I burped – this hideous rum burp – and blew it straight out the window.

Then I asked, ‘Like what?'

‘Oh, you know. Peace and love. Freedom. All that counter-culture crap. Whether or not he really embodied those values didn't matter – people needed to believe in something.'

He kept talking and I nodded along, trying to look attentive. The only problem was that I felt harsh sick. My dad's a pretty aggressive driver and zigzagging through traffic was making me queasy. Robson Street is packed with tons of fancy restaurants, and with the window open I could smell the fish and seafood rotting in the dumpsters. The stench practically strangled me. All that rum simmered away in my belly, threatening to boil over. I clutched at the armrest, terrified that I was going to hurl.

‘I remember the day he got shot,' my dad was saying. ‘Your mother and I were down near Puerto Limón in Costa Rica, camping in our Volks.'

‘Um, dad?'

‘It came on the radio and your mother just burst into tears.'

‘I think you better…'

‘It was like all those things he'd stood for had died with him.'

‘Dad!'

‘What?'

But I didn't have time to ask him to pull over. I just stuck my head out the window and started puking. It was weird puke – super explosive. It rushed out in a single spurt, like a short burst from a firehose. It splashed onto the road and rolled away behind us. I hardly even got any on the car door. Then I sat back and wiped at my mouth, trembling all over.

‘Jesus,' my dad said. ‘Where did that come from?'

‘Uh… my shrink gave me some leftover sushi. It tasted a bit funny.'

It was the only thing I could come up with. I thought I was busted for sure, but all he said was, ‘Oh. Did you have tuna?'

‘A couple pieces of sashimi.'

‘Maybe it had gone off.'

And that was it. He must have suspected something, but I guess the notion of me getting plastered with my psychiatrist was just too far-fetched for him to believe.

‘How'd it go today, aside from the sushi?'

‘Pretty good, I guess,' I said.

He slugged me, playfully, in the shoulder.

‘Think you can stay out of trouble for a while?'

I nodded. I could tell he didn't believe me, though. That's another thing my dad's got a sixth sense about. Trouble, I mean. It was only two days later that we started the riot.

And it was all downhill from there.

34

It was just like my dream.

The water shifted and shimmered, shimmered and shifted, as if a huge strip of sequinned fabric had been stretched all the way across the Cove. And Karen was sitting right beside me, dangling her feet off the edge of the dock. Waves slurped at the pilings and sunlight lashed me in the face and a warm breeze tickled the back of my neck. Chris and Jules weren't there. They hadn't gone to go get ice cream, though. That part was different from the dream. I think they were trying to find us some weed, actually. Or maybe some nachos. I can't really remember. But basically, I had Karen all to myself for a change.

‘God it's so hot, today,' I said.

‘Mm-hmm. For sure.'

I always turned into a bit of a gearbox when we were alone. Don't ask me why. I was just too aware of her to act normal. I mean, let's face it: a bikini doesn't cover much. There was plenty to look at. I could have studied any part of her for hours. I loved noticing all the little differences, all the little changes. That day she had a sunburn on her nose and a hickey on her neck and a new bracelet around her wrist. It was one of those candy bracelets that you can eat, and she nibbled at the sugary circles as she flipped through her magazine. Meanwhile I just sat there, trying my hardest to look relaxed.

‘How hot do you think it is?' I asked.

As soon as I said it, I wished I'd said something else. Anything else. I mean, Karen didn't want to talk about how hot it was, for Christ's sake. That's like standing in the middle of a swimming pool and talking about how wet the water is.

She shrugged. ‘Oh, about thirty I guess.'

I felt so shitty that I decided to stop talking entirely. I'd give her the silent treatment. It worked for Chris so maybe it would work for me, too. I flopped back onto the dock, crossed my arms, and shut my mouth. Also, I closed my eyes. That way I couldn't see her and get all distracted. I lay like that for a few minutes, trying to forget she even existed.

Eventually she asked, ‘What are we doing tonight?'

I didn't answer. I just grunted.

‘Are we hitting the Avalon or what?'

I grunted again.

‘But we're partying, right?'

The third time I didn't even bother to grunt. I just lay there with one arm draped over my eyes. Totally indifferent. It was pretty hilarious, actually. After a while, Karen started moving around and rustling the pages of her magazine. When that didn't work, she sighed in this super obvious way – like a spoiled little kid trying to show me how bored she was.

‘What's up?' I asked, acting all innocent.

‘I need help with this quiz. You're a guy. You should know.'

‘Okay.'

‘When will a man ejaculate the most: when he's been drinking, when it's been a while since his last orgasm, when he gets a lot of foreplay, or all of the above?'

I tried to look as if I talked about that kind of stuff all the time.

‘Um,' I said, ‘if you haven't come for a while you're carrying around a bigger load.'

‘What about the other two?'

I had to think about it. ‘When you're drunk it's bigger, yeah.'

‘So all of the above?'

I couldn't comment on the foreplay. I hadn't gotten that far with anybody yet.

‘Sure – I guess.'

She leaned over and pecked me on the cheek. ‘Thanks, babe.'

Karen hardly ever flirted with me like that. I knew it was only because Chris and Julian weren't around, but it still felt pretty awesome. I sat there in a giddy little daze while she finished her quiz. Then she rolled up the magazine and popped it in her beach bag.

‘Want to go swimming?'

When she said that, I harsh tripped out. It was like déjà vu, except way crazier because I'd heard those exact words in about a hundred dreams. I almost said, ‘We don't have our bathing suits.' But this wasn't the dream, and we did, so I just said, ‘Okay.'

Karen adjusted her bikini straps, pulled off her bracelet, and slipped into the water. I followed, shoving off with my arms and letting myself sink straight down. Five feet below the surface the temperature dropped suddenly, and I shot back up.

‘Careful,' Karen said. ‘There's a red jellyfish over there.'

‘Where?'

‘Right there.'

Then I saw. It was only a few yards away.

‘I hate those goddamned things. I got one on my face, once.'

Karen started giggling. ‘On your face?'

‘Yeah. Right on my face. Like this.'

I demonstrated with my hand, palming my face like a basketball. Karen giggled even harder. She swam over to the jellyfish, which was floating on the surface, pulsating.

‘It's so beautiful,' she said, ‘like a flower.'

‘But it hurts, like love.'

I said it super melodramatically, so she'd know I was messing with her.

‘You are such a geek.'

But she liked it. I could tell because as soon as we got out of the water, she asked me to rub tanning oil on her back. That was a privilege usually reserved for Chris. I sat cross-legged, directly behind her, so close I could see the wispy strands of hair that grew at the nape of her neck. She held the rest of her hair to one side. The oil was hot and runny and dripped over my hands, splattering onto the dock.

‘Careful. That stuff's expensive, you know.'

I almost apologised, but caught myself just in time.

‘Quit your moaning.'

That was a better thing to say. That's what Chris would have said. It worked, too. She didn't argue and I began to rub her down. My hands slid smooth and greasy over her shoulders, her back, her spine. I took my time. I was polishing a work of art. I was worshipping her body. The scent was sweet and pungent in the heat – almost like coconut milk. It smelled even better than her perfume. Better than anything.

‘Are you going to Julian's party?'

She knew I was. She only asked because the silence had become strange.

‘Yeah,' I said.

‘Me, too.'

A while ago, I did something that makes me sound like a real nutcase. I don't even like to admit it, but I went to buy a bottle of that tanning oil. Sometimes I still get it out, just to smell it – just to remember what it was like to be that close to her.

35

It was like having acid tossed in your face. It stung my eyes and burned my cheeks and sizzled up into my sinuses. I started crying straight away. I couldn't help it. It was worse than being punched in the nose, worse than getting kicked in the balls. Way worse. I could barely breathe. I just kept choking. My throat felt raw and ragged, as if my tonsils were bleeding.

Basically, it was nuts.

I must have fallen over. Or maybe I got pushed. It's hard to say, but the next thing I remember is being on the floor. People were stepping on me and I couldn't see a goddamn thing. I harsh freaked out. I yanked off my ghost costume and crawled around in circles for a while, crying my eyes out. Somehow, I managed to crawl my way into the bathroom.

I could hear sobbing. Another person was in there.

‘Are you okay?' I said.

‘It's the pepper spray.'

‘They got me, too. Can you see?'

‘No.'